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The Hong Kong Diaries

The Hong Kong Diaries

RRP: £99
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Patten's conviction that planting the seed of democracy would make Hong Kong more resilient after the handover to China will long be debated by historians, and this book will be an essential source.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. In Patten's diaries we see everyone from Mother Teresa to Margaret Thatcher passing through the governor's living room . As an insider's account, The Hong Kong Diaries is filled with that daily sense of grappling with a multi-headed hydra .For anyone who has a special interest, ties to and direct experience of HK as I have been lucky to have, this book is a must read. This is true, but British colonial rule did not take such an enlightened position until the handover was imminent. But he had one supreme advantage – the loyal backing of John Major, the prime minister, and Douglas Hurd, the foreign secretary, back in London. Because the 2022 polemic is much shorter than the diaries and is also more current, some readers may turn there first.

Ted Heath, political apologist supreme for China, is a “despicable old bore”, and Geoffrey Howe little better. Unexpectedly, his opponents included not only the Chinese themselves, but some British businessmen and civil service mandarins upset by Patten's efforts, for whom political freedom and the rule of law in Hong Kong seemed less important than keeping on the right side of Beijing. Sadly, many world leaders are still trying to turn a blind eye to tyranny as they naively think shaking hands with them will favour world economy. The book concludes with an account of what has happened in Hong Kong since the handover, a powerful assessment of recent events and Patten's reflections on how to deal with China - then and now. Photograph: Antonio Olmos/The Observer View image in fullscreen ‘The politics, in his words, were a “snake pit”.But the governor’s frustration with much of the business elite, anxious only to kowtow to Beijing and go on making a lot of money, was almost as great. His predecessors had mostly been diplomats or administrators – Patten was a senior UK politician with reforming ambitions and a flair for public relations who aroused suspicion in both Beijing and Hong Kong.



  • Fruugo ID: 258392218-563234582
  • EAN: 764486781913
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